Lacey City Council asks about adding higher income units at Maple Court
An effort to add higher income units at an Olympia housing development that will serve the homeless has prompted the Lacey City Council to ask if the same can be done at Maple Court.
Maple Court is a former motel near Marvin Road Northeast and Interstate 5 that was converted into an enhanced shelter to serve about 120 homeless residents.
It opened nearly three years ago, but has become a sore spot for some council members who have raised concerns about staff turnover there and whether the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI), which owns and operates the shelter, is the right group to operate it.
Some argue they are good at operating low-income housing but not a shelter. Some also say the social services intended for residents at Maple Court have not materialized to their liking. Area businesses have complained, too.
LIHI also will operate the Franz Anderson (rent-paying) permanent supportive housing project in Olympia, and they are now seeking to change the mix of housing there to accommodate not only those around 30% of area median income ($24,510 a year for an individual), but those at the 50% AMI ($40,850 a year for an individual) level as well.
That idea has resonated in Lacey, and resulted in a Tuesday meeting with the council and representatives of the Housing Authority of Thurston County, LIHI and Interfaith Works, which operates Sandy’s Flats in downtown Olympia as permanent supportive housing.
“So, for us, we really want to see ... having mixed income units there (at Maple Court) which, as you know, since it’s right in the middle of a commercial area and everything else, will hopefully rectify some of the concerns that we’ve had,” said Lacey Mayor Andy Ryder.
Council member Nic Dunning was blunt in his assessment.
“Maple Court is not fun and happy,” he said to the group. “Franz Anderson won’t be fun and happy. The Jungle (homeless encampment) is not fun and happy. The economy is not fun and happy. The picture you painted with the cooperation with LIHI and how well it’s going is not an accurate picture ... of the problems that we have had.”
LIHI responds
LIHI Executive Director Sharon Lee was on hand and she explained the organization has deep experience running a variety of housing.
“We do low-income rental housing, workforce housing, permanent supportive housing, homeownership housing, Tiny House villages, as well as enhanced shelters, and we have two urban rest stops, which are hygiene centers for the homeless,” she said.
The goal for Maple Court is to eventually convert it from an enhanced shelter into rent-paying permanent supportive housing in which the rooms would have more amenities, but that process has been delayed by emergency repairs to the building’s roof and siding because they began to leak, Lee said.
Those repairs fell under the oversight of Lacey’s Community and Economic Development department. They allowed existing residents to remain in place during the repairs, but the city did not allow new residents to move in.
However, those repairs are now complete and LIHI received its certificate of occupancy on Jan. 6, Lacey spokeswoman Donna Feliciano said Thursday. Maple Court is believed to be fully occupied, she said.
How Maple Court staffing works
The enhanced shelter has 24/7 staffing, said Alyssa Colville, LIHI’s assistant director of special projects and operations.
“We have two shelter monitors per shift,” she said. “They are in charge of the safety and security of the site, so they’re monitoring the front door, they’re doing perimeter checks, and they’re assisting participants with, you know, any meals, hygiene requests that they might need.”
They also have three case managers for the 120 residents.
“We are working on hiring a fourth,” Colville said. “We had somebody, and it fell through at the last minute, unfortunately, but we are close to getting fully staffed up.”
Colville, too, identified five other people, including herself, who help out at Maple Court.
Council member Maren Turner asked about staff turnover.
Colville acknowledged it happens.
“It’s a difficult job, right?,” she said, but added that staffing has stabilized after a period in which Maple Court lost a few managers after it first opened.
What kinds of things do case managers do?
“They’re helping folks get IDs, Social Security, helping them search for apartments,” Colville said.
Using a case manager is not a requirement to receive housing, which prompted council member Dunning to speak against the housing-first approach to homelessness. The housing-first approach contends that emerging from homelessness begins with a base of operations — a home — from which to build on.
“There is zero long-term reduction in addiction or mental health from this model,” Dunning said. “... It terrifies me that we would put a veteran into a complex with potentially 20 people who are addicted to fentanyl. That terrifies me because I’m a disabled veteran. I have PTSD, and I know what they go through. And so it’s like, oh, yeah, that sounds great, but this is such a deeper conversation, and that’s where my frustration comes from.”
Interfaith Works Meg Martin argued that the treatment-first approach is much more expensive because the alternative route could mean the costs of hospitalization or incarceration which are higher than what someone would pay with permanent supportive housing.
“There is a cost to not providing housing like this that I think is really important for municipalities to understand,” she said.
And although case management is not a requirement to receiving housing, residents still take advantage of those services, Martin said.
“Just because something isn’t mandated doesn’t mean that there’s not high levels of engagement,” she said. “And, in fact, what all of the decades and decades of research show is that when things are not mandated, people are much more likely to succeed and to engage in those services.”
John Torrence, director of housing development at LIHI, added that case managers aren’t just sitting around.
“They’re knocking on people’s doors,” he said. “They are constantly engaging the tenants to try to get them to access services.”
A note of caution
LIHI’s Lee warned the council that there may not be state funding for Maple Court if they seek to change the units to higher-income users because the original funding for it was part of the state’s rights-of-way program, which was designed to get people living in public areas, like along freeways, immediately into housing.
The rights-of-way program is now known as the encampment resolution program.
“Now, if you decide to lop off some of the units so that they’re not for the homeless, I don’t think the encampment resolution program will fund those,” Lee said. “... We would like to get together with the state to see if there’s some flexibility, and then get back to you to see if there’s some wiggle room because of local preference.”
